With my current D2 team in Wooden (Incarnate Word) I'm thinking of making a change in our offense. I just recently accepted the position there and they were already running a triangle/man2man. I've only ever had motion offense teams before and am not very well versed in the triangle offense, so I'm thinking of changing the offense to a fastbreak offense. The fastbreak offense seems to have few proponents on the message boards but I have read posts were some members (gillispie1 ect..) really enjoy it and that is what their teams run now. I like the idea (having left a pressing team) to have some form of my team being a little more fast paced (to tire the other team out, get my bench more playing time, ect...), and I thought that the fastbreak offense could do that while I still kept a man2man defense.

Basically, does anyone have any advice in switching to a fast break offense, any tips or tricks (since its been stated that it is very different from all the other offenses), any hard lessons that you've learned that might be beneficial to a newbie like myself, what players do you recruit (or what values you look for in them) to run the fast break offense, and do you think with my current roster I could accommodate the switch (I.e. would the players I have work until I got the necessary recruits). Sorry but didn't know where to ask as I'm kinda looking for a mentor from a fastbreak guru or two on this subject as it seems the offense is very confusing to most coaches, and I'd look to get a good handle on it. Thanks!

Well, first off, most coaches would say the 3 non-FB offenses are similar enough that you can treat them all the same. There may be some nuances with each of them, but the differences between them are much less than the differences b/w any of them and the FB offense.

FB offense is all about ATH and SP. You really need to commit to those skills -- along with DEF -- and if you run FCP with that, which is a logical connection imo, then you also need to treat Stamina with much more respect than you might otherwise. Your team stamina needs to be ~80 by the end of each season if you go FB/FCP, and you have to be at least 11 deep if you run that combo. If you go just FB (which I haven't done), then maybe you can get away with a R/S each season. FCP also relies heavily on ATH and SP, so since you have to commit to those skills for the FB offense, it makes some sense to just go FCP as well. Most coaches poo-poo FB, but if done right it can be powerful, but again, the key lies in getting premium ATH/SP along with high ST and DEF.

Your current players have good ATH and SP, but really I wouldn't deviate from the Triangle/MM combo it's currently running. You should experiment with FB or FB/FCP at D3 before taking a well-built D2 team with good prestige down that road imo.

I see what you're saying am am thinking about putting the switch to FB on hold for at least a season or two (to give the triangle a chance). I have no desire to go FB/FCP. The whole point was to see how viable running a FB offense would be with a m2m defense. Basically what teams like Kansas/North Carolina run in real life, they run fast break offenses so to speak as they want to increase possessions because they have superior athletes & want to get them more touches/easy baskets.

I get that ATH, SPD are very important (I ran a press team in D3), and good DEF is always encouraged. I guess I was wondering if you could get away with players with less offensive skills since FB is about beating your opponent down the floor and trying to score quickly. Another issue I was wondering about is how important ball handling or passing is, as the guide states that a con of running a FB offense is more turnovers (just like in real life). So would players with higher ball handling/passing skills (especially guards) be even more valuable than in the other offenses?

Thanks for your input jdno! Anyone else got any good rules of thumb, tips/tricks, or guidelines for running the FB (maybe even with a FCP defense)?

You can be successful with FB if just about all of your players have high stamina (you want at least 80), and you go 11 or 12 deep. I usually don't redshirt when I run fastbreak, I just play all 12 guys and tire out my opponent.

son of a *****. i had like a 2 page post in another window i had been working on and accidentally closed it (god damn it, why do i always keep so many tabs open and make it so the X is about 75% of the tab size?). chrome has a thing where if you click off, it saves forms, but i dont know if you can get it back if you accidentally X out a window? anyone know if/how you can get that back? i do this all the time, would be great if there was a solution!

i found you can control T, but it brought up the most recent closed, skipped the one i did, and maybe like 10 others, and then pulled up all this random **** from forever ago. i guess thats what i get for using an ancient version of chrome. oh wait. apparently mine is up to date? i guess it updated itself. well that sucks!

yes, you can get by with lower LP and PE in the FB offense. And from my observations, good BH and P is definitely a plus. I usually skimp on these categories at times in pursuit of ATH/SP/DEF/ST and I definitely notice the high TOs when I face another FCP team. So I think if you can get good BH/P you're better off for sure. Are you better off by trying to get better than average BH and P at the expense of ATH/SP/DEF/ST, that's the question. And I'm not sure, though I lean to no.

I've ran it pretty successfully for awhile. I think people overestimate the stamina needed in the system. Ideally you'd like every position in your 2-deep to average 75+ stamina. I think you'd rather be deep in talent than be loaded in stamina (obviously both wouldn't hurt). Press seems to eat up more stamina than FB. So, if you play FB alone you can chose between stamina and depth, but if you play both FB/FCP you have to have both.

Also, I think this is an often overlooked point, but part of improvement is tied to playing time. In your standard sets starters usually play 24-29 mins per game. By contrast, in the FB it's usually 21-26 mins. Backups usually have more room for improvement and they get more minutes in the FB. So, this helps build depth. I notice this a lot late in the season where teams simply can't handle my bench.

On the negative side jdno is right about to's. When you think FB think UNC to some degree. When they have a high level point guard they are one of the best teams out there, but when they don't they lack continuity and are to machines. So, having a good point or two and decent bh/p from the 1-4 positions is important.

Posted by gillispie1 on 2/7/2013 12:37:00 AM (view original):son of a *****. i had like a 2 page post in another window i had been working on and accidentally closed it (god damn it, why do i always keep so many tabs open and make it so the X is about 75% of the tab size?). chrome has a thing where if you click off, it saves forms, but i dont know if you can get it back if you accidentally X out a window? anyone know if/how you can get that back? i do this all the time, would be great if there was a solution!

gillispie, I believe you can just open another new tab in chrome and in that new tab when it comes up, in the lower right hand corner there is an option of "Recently Closed" (tabs). If you click that you can pick like 10 of the last tabs you've closed. Besides that I'm not sure if there is a way to get that post back. As a user of many tabs open at once in Chrome, I can feel your pain.

I ran FB/FCP on one of my DIII teams for a couple of season's when I didn't didn't have much experience in HD. The season that I decided to change my offense to Motion, I read that when you run FB you should keep all of your players distro at ZERO, since your guys are pushing the ball up the court trying for an easy basket anyway. I went with it and began seeing better offensive output from my team and later I wished that I wouldn't have changed Offenses to experiment with FB more.

whoever suggested you ran all 0s with FB gave you terrible advice. ill try to re-write most of my lost post here later, one of my conf mates wants some points on FB anyway, so ill try to get to that when i get back from work later on tonight.

You need ATH/SPD, that's a given, so if you know you are going to focus on those two components you have two routes you can take.

1. DEFENSE- Regardless of the concept you use (zone, FCP or man), if you recruit for defense you have the oppurtunity to have an elite defensive team. The good news is that SPD and DEF work well together to create points off of TO. I can't prove it yet but I am fairly certain that HIGH SPEED guards turn steals into layup more often than low speed guards. I suspect that good TO causing defenses with high speed guards create about 6-10 more points a game than the average team. At DII, I would consider and elite turnover guard something like 60 ATH, 80 SPD, 80 DEF.

2. OFFENSE- Again, you have high speed so punt your bigs and do some guard magic. If you can get a 60 ATH 80 SPD guard (or 5 of them) make sure a few have 75+ PER, a few have 75+ BH (sprinkle in a 40+ LP if you can) and friggin out score everyone. I would focus on REB in bigs (they should have a good ATH anyway) and play three fast guards at the 1-2-3.

Since I have been doing the FB/FP option for awhile and I feel I am just starting to get it a good feel for it recently taking Pacfic in the big west recently to the 2nd round of the NT and battling even in the 2nd round.

My opinion the FB/FP is a good option because most coaches don't play the FB/PF. So that gives you a different value on players in recruiting leaving you some valuable players to recruit for your team that others may not target. It also allows you to match up against some better teams as they tend to have a few walk on players each season and they do not recruit for stamina. You can play uptempo forcing them to use their depth.

Stamina is important, you need to wear down the other team without wearing your own team down.
Depth is important as your 2nd string will be playing almost as many minutes as your starters.

In the fastbreak/press your guards are the most important part of your offense. You need players with high perimeter shooting ability because you will be taking a lot of quick shots. You want them to be three point threats. Your PG should be a all around stud in shooting, passing, and ball handling. If you can find a stud offensive PG you can sacrifice defense at the PG position. Some of my best teams were when my PG could do it all and their defense was only in the 40's. Get a high stamina PG who can pass, ball handle, and shoot and athl and speed is a plus. Get a SG who has a high perimeter shooting and can play defense. Get a well balanced SF who can shoot the perimeter compared to the low post. I can't stress how important it is to have a good perimeter shooting team that can drain threes. You need to recruit a PF and C who can shoot inside to keep the defense honest from guarding the perimeter. In the FB/PF you cannot recruit defensive rebounding minded players who suck in the low post, they need to be scoring threats first and defense second.

I disagree with alot of that. I recruit defense 1st in the FB/FP. It works pretty well for me. I would never play a player with a 40 in DEF.

I also don't think you need to shoot 3's. The high speed, high BH, high FT% guys are just if not more effective because they draw more fouls.

I look at LP 4th when recruiting bigs. I go ATH, REB, DEF before LP. I like to have my 4 to have a reasonably high speed but not my center. I've played guys with 20's reasonably effectively at high end DI.

Posted by Trentonjoe on 2/24/2013 3:13:00 PM (view original):I disagree with alot of that. I recruit defense 1st in the FB/FP. It works pretty well for me. I would never play a player with a 40 in DEF.

I also don't think you need to shoot 3's. The high speed, high BH, high FT% guys are just if not more effective because they draw more fouls.

I look at LP 4th when recruiting bigs. I go ATH, REB, DEF before LP. I like to have my 4 to have a reasonably high speed but not my center. I've played guys with 20's reasonably effectively at high end DI.

I definitely agree with the DEF part. I don't even like guys in the 40's for D3. Not if I want a guy to be able to finish the game, anyway.